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Leo Cuneo
Ottilio "Leonardo" Cuneo was the Don of the Cuneo crime family from 1955 to 1979, succeeding Carmine Cuneo. Biography Ottilio Cuneo was a son of Don Carmine Cuneo, the boss of the mighty Italian-American Cuneo crime family in The Bronx and Hell's Kitchen neighborhoods of New York City. Known often as "Leo" or Leonardo, Cuneo was an underboss of the Cuneo family during the Five Families War. The Cuneos were at times allies with the Corleone crime family, and from 1948 to 1955 they had a shaky truce with the Corleones after the death of Corleone underboss Santino Corleone, which was a joint effort of the Cuneos, their Stracci allies, and the Tattaglia crime family, with Don Emilio Barzini of the Barzini crime family masterminding the effort. Don Carmine was assassinated as he left the Savannah Hotel in Midtown in 1955 by Corleone gunmen Aldo Trapani and Willie Cicci, and Leo became the new Don of the Cuneo family, as he was Don Carmine's oldest son. His consigliere Luciano Fabbri was pro-war against the Corleones despite the truce, and because of his influential voice, the Corleones had him assassinated soon after Leo became Don. Also, Leo's brother Marco Cuneo, the underboss of the family under him, was killed in an "accident" staged by the Corleones to avenge several Corleone soldiers killed on his orders. As boss of the Cuneo family, Leo made the executive decision to go to the mattresses with the Corleones, but Aldo Trapani (now the Don of New York City and the semi-independent Trapani crime family) bribed FBI agent Leo O'Conner to turn the screws on the Cuneos. Anxious to avoid federal investigation into the family, Cuneo had to call off the violence. Leo Cuneo waged war with the Corleones for much of 1955, as the Corleones muscled in on the Five Families' smuggling operations. The Corleones stole $100,000 that the Cuneos had planned to send to Kansas City to be laundered following a heist of the Manhattan Trust, and several Cuneo racket trucks carrying valuable goods (such as narcotics) were hijacked and sold by the Corleones. Eventually, the Corleones made peace with the Five Families after completely taking control over New York City and ensuring that the rival families had no more strength to fight them or interfere with their operations. Don Cuneo became a business partner of Corleone boss Michael Corleone, who made moves towards legitimacy by giving the Clemenza crime family and the Trapanis control of what used to be the Corleone territory in New York, and Corleone instead went into the business of managing an empire of casinos, hotels, nightclubs, and property. Leo Cuneo invested in Corleone's businesses, making millions as a longtime friend of Don Corleone. In 1979, Michael Corleone called a meeting of the dons at Atlantic City to sell off all of his casinos to the Five Families, and he was given $50,000,000 as his share from the casinos. Death Unfortunately for the mob bosses at The Commission meeting in Atlantic City, the Clemenza family boss Joey Zasa planned to get rid of the old-fashioned bosses and usher in the new bosses, who would probably be more inclined to enter the drug trade. Zasa had been criticized by many for recruiting African-Americans and Hispanics into his family, and for dealing drugs on his territory, which was an infamia in the Mafia. Zasa planned for a helicopter to assassinate all of the bosses as he left the room with his co-conspirator Osvaldo Altobello, the Don of the Tattaglia family. The helicopter gunned down twelve people and seriously wounded ten and Cuneo was mortally wounded, and his last words were cursing Joey Zasa as a "son of a bitch". Category:Dons Category:Americans Category:Mobsters Category:Cuneo Category:Killed Category:1979 deaths